The present invention relates to relates generally to techniques for transporting live poultry.
The U.S. Poultry industry grows their chickens in large houses or barns until the chickens reach market age and then transport the live birds to a slaughter plant by the means of cages on a flatbed trailer. Typical poultry cages are designed to be handled with fork lifts and dumped mechanically at the slaughter plant. The current system of transportation evolved over approximately 25 years ago and has changed very little over time. One of the problems with the current system is the tractor, trailer, cages and binding mechanism weigh approximately 48,000 pounds empty allowing a payload of only 31,000 pounds of live chickens.
Currently, the industry standard for transporting live poultry is a steel cage with two forklift sleeves separated with angle stretchers to form a rectangular base for the cage. The steel cage is constructed of square tubular posts, which are welded to each side of a base to segment the frame into compartment stacks. Horizontal square tubing is then positioned between the vertical post both longitudinal and transverse to provide support beams for the compartment floors. Additionally, a single sheet of fiberglass or un-reinforced plastic is positioned on the horizontal beams, which provide flooring for the compartments on each level. The cage roof is constructed from a single panel of galvanized sheet metal welded to the square tubing frame located around the perimeter of the top of the compartments.
Birds are retained in the individual compartments by wall panels constructed from small vertical wires secured by larger horizontal wires welded at crossing tangents at the top, bottom, and midpoint of the panels to form a grid. The frame panels are welded to the inside of the structural tubular frame. Frequent damage occurs when the forklift tines impact the wire grid panel and broken wires can be pushed inward causing injury to the birds until the panels are repaired. Typically, the panels are not repaired or replaced unless the birds are able to leave the cage through the damaged opening. Moreover, repairing such cages is difficult.
The door panels are extruded aluminum with round solid tubular like profiles incorporated in the top and bottom of the profile and extending longitudinally from one extremity to the other. The position of the door is controlled by a spring loaded mechanism, which consist of a bracket rigidly mounted to the door's far side extremity, to which is rotationally mounted a rod. The rotationally mounted rod protrudes through a slot in a bracket rigidly mounted to the inside face of one of the cage's adjacent tubular post. A spring is circumferentially positioned around the control rod and placed between the door bracket and the cage mounted bracket. The spring is mounted so the spring is loaded at the midpoint of the door's rotation and is relaxed as the pivot goes over center to close or open the door.
When accidentally struck by forklift tines, the aluminum door stays permanently bent. The bend in the door causes the mounting pin to jam in the receiving post and the control rod in its mounting. This causes the door to be fixed in the partially open position. The partially open doors are frequently torn loose during the close side-by-side loading on the transport trailer or unloading system. It is common practice to remove the door if repair is extensive and leave the compartment without a door and therefore an un-productive compartment.
Currently, metal cages weigh in excess of 900 pounds per cage. A truck carrying a normal load of 22 empty cages would include approximately nine tons of metal cages. The weight of the metal cages adds significantly to the transportation fuel cost for shipping poultry. Additionally transportation costs associated with shipping the empty metal cages are incurred with each poultry shipment because the poultry is typically only transported one way.
One solution to this problem is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,020,517 (Seay), which is owned by the same Assignee, namely, W. A. Crider, Jr., as the present application. In that invention, a plurality of stand-alone poultry cages are formed of plastic and then stacked inside a welded-together aluminum frame. Unfortunately, that invention suffers from several problems, including poor structural stability as well as cracking of the frame.
Thus, there remains a need for a poultry cage-trailer combination that together greatly reduces the weight of those components in order to maximize payload, i.e., live bird pounds, that combines good structural stability with durability and while complying with road and bridge laws.
All references cited herein are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.